


Impatient Defense

by chellerrific



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Missing Scene, Yabeau, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: Beau and Yasha get a minute alone after fulfilling the Gentleman’s request.





	Impatient Defense

**Author's Note:**

> I had a thought about a scene like this when episode 16 aired and I probably should have written it back then when it was fresh in my mind but whatever am I right. Spoiler alert: people talk, nobody says what they really mean, deus ex machina wins the day. My ability to advance the story is minuscule compared to the creators’; I just wanted to try to capture their voices.
> 
> I feel a little bad Caleb is the only one who didn’t even get a passing reference, so: Caleb.

“These bruises,” Yasha said, applying salve to the place on Beau’s back she said she couldn’t reach. “They’re not from our fight in the research facility.”

Beau didn’t even bother asking how she could tell. It seemed like the sort of thing Yasha would just _know._ “Uh, yeah, it was, uh… monk shit.” She gestured vaguely, trying to use her hands to fill in the missing words.

“Mm,” Yasha said.

There was silence for a moment, and Beau found herself getting lost in Yasha’s touch. The same hands that had eviscerated so many enemies were gentle and warm on her bare skin.

The silence began to itch at her uncomfortably. “So that was pretty fuckin’ bonkers, right?” she said. “That ghost just, like, came out of the bookshelf? And it had no feet? I mean… fuck, right?” She glanced back over her shoulder.

“Not to mention the whispers,” Yasha said, and their eyes met. “You heard them too, didn’t you?”

“Uh, uhh, I,” Beau said. “Well, yeah, I did, but it was like… so overwhelming, I can’t even…” She pantomimed her head exploding. “Sorry I took a swipe at you. That wasn’t really me, you know.”

“Of course,” Yasha said. “I’m not delicate, though.”

“No, definitely not, definitely not,” Beau agreed, her eyes lingering on the curves of Yasha’s deltoids. “But I pack a mean punch, is all. Anyway, I’m just kinda shocked that Molly knocked you out like that.”

“What?”

“With that… thing that he does, you know, where your eyes go all black and shit?” She passed a hand over her face. “When you, you know. Swung at me.”

“Oh, that. A blood curse, he calls it. It’s quite useful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, all though, I mean, I just thought you guys were like, super tight. It’s weird that he’d attack you like that.”

“He was afraid I would kill you.”

“And instead he sorta almost killed you.”

“He trusts my ability to withstand something like that.”

“But you weren’t really… standing anymore… you know.”

“I’m fine now,” Yasha said. “You might not have been. He was protecting you. And me. He knows I would have felt terrible harming… a teammate like that.”

“Okay but I totally didn’t _need_ it. I’m wily.” To demonstrate, Beau dodged a couple of nonexistent incoming blows, but something in her back tore with a painful jerk. “Ow! Shit. Ow.”

“Wily,” Yasha repeated, the smirk audible in her voice.

“Well, you know, when I’m not all fucked up,” Beau protested. “I’m wily as _shit._ Like you totally missed it in Alfield. I was in this doorway, and there were like… _ten_ gnolls or something coming at me at once, and I’m just like, dodging and punching back and I caught a fucking _arrow_ in my _hands.”_ She reenacted the moment, but more gently this time.

“Yes, I’ve heard the story. A few times.”

“But it was fucking awesome, man, like, awesome enough to be told at least several times per person. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! BAM!”

“Well, you are difficult to pin down,” Yasha said.

Beau meant to say the suave, euphemistic, correct thing in response to that, but instead what came out was, “Look who’s talking.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, you know, the way you’re always disappearing and shit.” Beau gestured again. “I mean, I _get_ it. I mean I don’t but I do, you know?”

Yasha did not, at all.

“Like I get that’s your _thing_ but also it sucks is all.” Beau shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, the whole ‘mysterious’ vibe is… it’s kinda hot, but, you know…”

There was a pause. “You like people to fill in the blanks a lot, don’t you?”

“I’m a monk,” Beau said mirthlessly. “My mind is mostly blank. It’s called training.”

“Ah.”

“The monks would have liked you way better than me. ‘Beauregard, you are talking too much. Silence is golden!’ Yeah, you know what else is golden? My foot up your ass.”

“Some people like that.”

Startled, Beau laughed. “True, though. Anyway I guess all I’m trying to say is like… we’re a team, I guess? And you’re part of that? Only you’re also not? And it’s just way better when you are?”

“I can’t make commitments,” Yasha said carefully.

“I’m not asking for a _commitment,_ just for, like, you know…” Words failed her again. Beau realized she didn’t know _what_ she was asking for. She knew what she _wanted_ , though. And she didn’t believe she was entirely wrong in thinking that she and Yasha were on the same page there. Only—if she said the wrong thing, it might cause Yasha to bolt, and that made Beau… afraid?

She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know! Everybody likes having you around.”

Yasha pressed on a particular spot on Beau’s back, causing Beau to howl in pain. “That one goes a little deeper,” Yasha said. “But it’s not serious.”

The door crashed open, Jester framed dramatically against the backdrop of the hall outside. “Beau! Beau, I heard you yell, and—” She stopped, looking back and forth between the room’s two occupants. “Oh, shoot. I totally thought I was going to catch you two having sex. Or are we still working up to that?” She grinned, a little blue devil.

“You wish you were that lucky,” Beau said, getting up and shrugging her shirt back on. “Do you do that to Fjord, by the way? Like when he gets out of the bath?”

“He locks his door and I don’t have a key,” Jester muttered.

“You could always get Nott to pick it for you,” Yasha said, completely straight-faced.

Jester’s face lit up. “That’s not a bad idea! You’re so smart, Yasha. Isn’t she, _Beau?”_

Beau rolled her eyes.

“Anyways, I’ll leave you guys alone again in case there’s anything else you wanted to do in private and I _promise_ I won’t come barging in again,” Jester said.

“And I _totally_ believe you,” Beau said. “What, were you just like, waiting right outside the door or—you know what, doesn’t matter. I was just going downstairs to get something to eat anyway. You hungry?” She glanced back at Yasha.

“I…” Yasha was even slower than usual to answer. “Well, actually I could use a drink, at that.”

“All right,” Beau said with all the cheer of a general marching into battle. “Let’s all go get shit-faced, then.”

“Milk, please!” Jester corrected, skipping ahead down the stairs.

Yasha hesitated in the hall. “Beau, I…”

Beau paused at the top step, turning back.

“I… don’t dislike being around everybody,” Yasha said finally. “Things are just… complicated.”

Beau grinned, Fjord’s words about how to communicate nicely with people back in her head thanks to Jester. “Ain’t that always the way. You know what isn’t complicated? Bacon. Come on.”


End file.
